With Steve and Fah
This was a great week for seeing some old friends. On Monday, our A-100 classmate Steve and his fabulous wife Fah dropped in to see us on their way south. It was so fun to catch up with them and hear about their past year in Guyana.
Also this week, Angie, one of our favorite instructors from ConGen training, was in town. We went out with her and some other ELO’s on Tuesday night at an old restaurant in El Paso that’s sort of an institution (with good margaritas). The next night, John wrangled me an invitation to join another small group from DC for dinner, including another woman whom I really like a lot.
We were off on Monday for Columbus day, so John took me cycling in New Mexico. We went about 18 miles – it was so fun!
Friday night, our neighbors came over for a backyard happy hour. It was a beautiful night outside and we enjoyed getting caught up. Michael and TFran had just returned from their anniversary trip to Copper Canyon, Ryan was the point person on the Ambassador’s last visit, and Meghan just got her next assignment to Tunis, so there was lots to talk about.
Then Saturday, the real fun began! John and I enjoyed our last visit to Carlsbad Caverns so much that we wanted to go back. We started with our favorite lunch at Geske’s in El Paso, then drove about 2.5 hours over to the Caverns. I was really looking forward to seeing the bats fly out of the cave at sunset, so I was super-disappointed when the park ranger told us they had flown early, and we had missed them! We hung out anyway, just hoping to see some…and it paid off. After about an hour, the resident population decided to come out! (The earlier ones where probably migrants, who aren’t in the know about when they should come out!) It was spectacular, and lasted about 20 minutes.
This morning, we headed back to the Caverns for our latern tour. We went through another part of the caverns (the left-hand cavern) with only a tour guide, our small group, and candlelight lanterns for illumination. It was really fun! At one point, we blew out our candles, and I literally couldn’t see my hand in front of my face!
After the lantern tour, we toured the Big Room again – so awe-inspriring! Until I went to the Caverns, I never believed something could be so beautiful.
On the movie front, we watched “Away We Go,” with Maya Rudolf, and “Revolutionary Road” – both really good.
On the latern tour at Carlsbad
